Tie Vote / Absentee Ballot

[Guest Jane]

Our officer election meeting is next month.  We offer absentee ballots for this election.  In the event of a tie vote for any of the positions, we will vote again that night.  Do we include the absentee ballots for any additional vote taken or are they null after the initial vote?  Our by laws do not yet address this.  

[Richard Brown]

If your bylaws do not specifically permit absentee voting, it is not permitted at all.

If they do permit absentee voting, and if no one is elected on the first ballot, then those members who are not present will simply not be able to vote in the subsequent ballots if the Voting is to take place at the meeting.

You did not include the absentee ballots from the first round of voting in any supplement rounds.

Check your bylaws to confirm whether absentee voting is permitted at all. Any provisions in your bylaws will prevail over RONR 

[Hieu H. Huynh]

In addition, RONR says, "An organization should never adopt a bylaw permitting a question to be decided by a voting procedure in which the votes of persons who attend a meeting are counted together with ballots mailed in by absentees." RONR 11th ed., p. 423, ll. 25-28.

[Gary Novosielski]

In the event the absentee ballots are tied, they represent an indecisive ballot vote.  They would be treated the same as an indecisive first ballot in an in-person context, and simply set aside and a second ballot conducted--in this case an actual in-person ballot.  If the second ballot results in no candidate receiving a majority, a third (or subsequent) ballot may be required.

[jstackpo]

And, just to close out the possibilities, the provision that a tie vote on the first ballot (with absentees included) is followed by an in-meeting vote by those attending the meeting (absentees not able to vote) had darn well better be included in the bylaws or you are going to hear from a lot of unhappy absentees when they get wind of what happened.

If such a provision is NOT in the bylaws, you will have to run the election (for the tied position) all over again, just as it was run first time around, with absentees given the chance to vote. Presumably this will have to be completed at a later meeting.